The Family is actually a neat ideas

I had an idea on how I would do the Family not to long ago.

First of all, all the vampire crap goes out. Basically it was a cult that promoted brotherhood between all wastelanders including humans and it was like a by a character calling himself the Father.
Normally this could have been just another cult in the wasteland that is out to manipulate and control its members while its leaders reap the benefits such as riches, easier life, or just using the lower ranking followers for their own perversions were it not that the Family actually does actually beneficial that benefits Arefu.

For some reason the members of the Family are able to control the dangerous wildlife around Arefu, limiting and preventing attacks on wildlife and farmers, and destruction of acres and crops.
As a result the cult has drawn in quite some people including a lot of the young folks from Arefu.

Of course this cult that preaches brotherhood, friendship, and cooperation between humans and mutants must have some dark secrets and the Family does no disappoint on this expectations.

The sheriff from Arefu would ask the player to look into the Family, what the youth from Arefu are actually being thought there, and what the cult does in its inner sanctum.

Once the player is past the reception area for new members and visitors the player would discover that the Family is actually a blood cult that practices cannibalism and rituals with blood.
The reason why the Family is able to control some of the wildlife is because they are actually feeding these animals the corpses of captured raiders and any unlucky lonely travellers they come across.

Of course the player could go to the sheriff and shut down this operation, but the cult does benefit Arefu's people and gives a sense of unity and belonging to something, plus they keep the more dangerous wildlife at bay that the people of Arefu can not deal with in a conventional way.

Instead the player could also redeem the Family, get them to abandon their cannibalism and rituals and just use captured raiders (who cares about them anyway) to keep the dangerous wildlife in check.
This would benefit Arefu and the Cult on the longer run.
 
I was thinking it more akin to Cannibal Jhonson's name origin, a group that only keeps the Vampire facade to intimidate would be attackers with myth and pretension, They would often decorate their base of operations and the surrounding are with creepy zymbols in blood and cropses (maybe fake ones made from Brahmin instestines and old clothes, like the Ghost farm in 2), the Capital Wasteland has the Ghoul hate more pronounced so maybe they could also be a group that accepts and protects newly ghoulified people from attacks and such, and they know how to distinguish early stages of ghoulification from smple radiation poisoning so that would give them the fame of being kidnappers, they would have scouts going from town to town seeing if they can help people in that state and collecting supplies. Their leader could even be a Ghoul with a flair for the dramatic so that they could more easily give the image that their leader is an immortal, He could even be an actual hematophage, altho just for personal taste rather than him thinking he is an actual vampire, like the would still be kind of a weird dude.


Another group of raiders might have started emulating their Myth rather than their actual philosophies and would be attacking Arefu under their banner without asking after seeing they took the kid from his house. And that's where the people of Arefu hire you to take down the Family after finding out where they live. Just some random ideas.
 
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The Blood Ties quest to me started out as a job and I liked the twist. It was an interesting quest. I wasn't expecting it, but I wanted to play it once it started. And quite honestly who cares about a reward when you wonder into a cult that drinks blood to temper their cannibalism? It shouldn't matter, experiencing the game should be the point.

And what is this shit about not having "vampires" in Fallout? If Caesar can base a group of raiders on a few books about Rome why can't some other guy with a power trip do it with Fallout's equivalent of Twilight? There isn't a reason that some one wouldn't or couldn't. This could happen with a bunch of philosophy, history or literary books that survived the war.
 
Lexx said:
(Doesn't change the fact that the 200 years old unlooted supermarket is bullshit and Moira is god damn annoying, though.)
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Super Duper Mart specifically was not unlooted. All of the stuff you access in there is stored by the raiders. The shelves just have tin cans and empty boxes.
 
The Dutch Ghost said:
[in spoiler tags for space saving]
I had an idea on how I would do the Family not to long ago.

First of all, all the vampire crap goes out. Basically it was a cult that promoted brotherhood between all wastelanders including humans and it was like a by a character calling himself the Father.
Normally this could have been just another cult in the wasteland that is out to manipulate and control its members while its leaders reap the benefits such as riches, easier life, or just using the lower ranking followers for their own perversions were it not that the Family actually does actually beneficial that benefits Arefu.

For some reason the members of the Family are able to control the dangerous wildlife around Arefu, limiting and preventing attacks on wildlife and farmers, and destruction of acres and crops.
As a result the cult has drawn in quite some people including a lot of the young folks from Arefu.

Of course this cult that preaches brotherhood, friendship, and cooperation between humans and mutants must have some dark secrets and the Family does no disappoint on this expectations.

The sheriff from Arefu would ask the player to look into the Family, what the youth from Arefu are actually being thought there, and what the cult does in its inner sanctum.

Once the player is past the reception area for new members and visitors the player would discover that the Family is actually a blood cult that practices cannibalism and rituals with blood.
The reason why the Family is able to control some of the wildlife is because they are actually feeding these animals the corpses of captured raiders and any unlucky lonely travellers they come across.

Of course the player could go to the sheriff and shut down this operation, but the cult does benefit Arefu's people and gives a sense of unity and belonging to something, plus they keep the more dangerous wildlife at bay that the people of Arefu can not deal with in a conventional way.

Instead the player could also redeem the Family, get them to abandon their cannibalism and rituals and just use captured raiders (who cares about them anyway) to keep the dangerous wildlife in check.
This would benefit Arefu and the Cult on the longer run.
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I really like that idea. It reminds me of my own ideas I had for "fixing" the issue with the Raiders...

Instead of raiders just being automatically hostile cannibalistic sadist rapers for no logical reasons, the few locations where you would find raiders regularly and predictably that had places for them to sleep (like Springvale, those buses with the mattresses, that one abandoned house, etc) you would have a CHANCE to find a special item that explains a few things about them: A torn jumpsuit. Wander the wasteland enough, and collect enough torn jumpsuits, and you would eventually discover that these are all pieces of Vault 106 jumpsuits; the raiders came from Vault 106. So, when you venture into that place, and you witness the result of the psychoactive airborne chemicals causing you hallucinations and you see the denizens of the place who lived here for extended periods of time have all gone violently insane, you realize what has caused this unusual surge in unreasonable and psychotic, roving raiders to plague the region.

Yes, this thought was largely inspired by Serenity and Miranda and the Reapers, and mind you these were all components of a much larger reimagining of the game's story to take place between 20 and 50 years after the war, NOT 200, so by itself that would've have fixed the concept of these silly raiders. But it was still a solution to a consequence of poor writing and poor implementation.

In FO2, "raiders" were not some generic catch-all. There were the random raiders who were no different than highwaymen, looters, cannibals, and other encounters, in which what they were called had more to do with their level of threat and appearance rather than their behavior (they'd always be hostile), and then their were 2 groups of raiders with established bases of operation, and none of these interacted with one another nor did they have any association with each other. FO3 just made it seem like EVERY raider was the same. They felt supremely out of place because of that choice, lacking in reason or purpose. My idea was a task to address that lack of cause reason or purpose.

Hell, why not take my ideas and elevate them one step further? Why not another craftable weapon that would spray any number of various chemicals at your adversaries? Why not once you discovered the "source" of the raiders, if you were skilled enough with science when you reached the bottom of Vault 106, you MIGHT be able to concoct a "cure" that you could produce limited enough of and use as ammo for the chem-spraying weapon? Why not if you spray raiders with it, it knocks them out, but it has no effect on people who weren't effected by 106's airborne treatment (like Talon Company). Just a thought experiment...

FO3 is RIFE with good ideas that were implemented as "baby's first draft", and clearly could've benefits from revisions and more drafts and SIGNIFICANT edits. Just like the mods, enough of these could turn the pile of shit that we got into a damn fine game, even in spite of the shitty gameplay! The core game, however, would still be a terrible waste, but at least with these changes and revisions, it would be something one could feel proud to enjoy playing!
 
What bothered me about them is that they are basically psycho murderers and cannibals that just drink blood, but you lose karma for killing them because they're for some reason perceived as more innocent or sympathetic than the Andale Family or any raider in the wasteland.

If you massacre them all including Lucy's brother (who killed his own parents) Areful will become hostile towards you. So your only solution is to leave a town under the guard of cannibals.
 
This kind of borders on grave digging.
If you want to talk about a subject that has already been discussed before than that is not a problem, but I much rather would prefer that you open a new topic for it than reviving one that is nearly two years old.
 
I love the idea of cannibalism as an actual sickness people get in the Wasteland.

Also Post-Apocalypse Vampires as a coping strategy?

AWESOME.

Besides, they're not real vampires. They're just a bunch of guys trying to abstain from eating people because, again, that's apparently a thing. It's AA for cannibals with vampires DELIBERATELY played up as what they are so they can cope by pretending they're not just a bunch of Ted Bundy serial killers.
 
Wumbology said:
People bitch about it a lot. But you know? I think it's one of the more self-aware and shit, well-written things in Fallout 3.

It's a cult of personality. The Lone Wanderer can even directly confront Vance and tell him it's brainwashing... and Vance admits that's true. Plus, just look at Vance's character: his lispy voice, strong features, solid jawline, clean-shaveness- he's an archetypical handsome cult leader. His wife, Holly, is plainly subservient to him and, judging by dialogue between them, does nothing but reassure him. Karl, who would seem to be the rowdiest of the Family, plainly confronts he thinks it's bullshit, and Brianna seems to be the resident groupie. She even mentions how "cool" her line of the Laws are. On top of that, the Laws seem to be like typical New-Age bullshit: "Feast not on the flesh, drink only the blood-" written in some faux King James style. I really don't see any faults. In fact, Blood Ties is one of the best written quests- and ideas- in Fallout 3.

And the basic idea of some weird Wendigo Psychosis mutation isn't really all that absurd, Van Buren had creepy mutation-induced cannibals too..

Honestly, of all things to complain about Fallout 3- this is not one. And for all people complain about the karma, you are given the option to wipe them out, which the people of Arefu gladly accept as a player choice.

So, check this down on "Thing NMA has drastically blown out of proportion and generally selectively interpreted into the 'Bethesda can't write' narrative"
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I agree it was a good idea on paper. my problem with it is that- its just vampires. if it had been a new type of intelligent mutant/mutation I think it would have been a great addition to fallout canon. but again as it stands, its just vampires. and vampires have no place in fallout.
 
R.Graves said:
I agree it was a good idea on paper. my problem with it is that- its just vampires. if it had been a new type of intelligent mutant/mutation I think it would have been a great addition to fallout canon. but again as it stands, its just vampires. and vampires have no place in fallout.
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Well, they're not vampires. That's why it's clever. They're not possessed of any supernatural powers or special abilities whatsoever. They're just human beings who PRETEND to be vampires so they can feel better about being cannibals. Also, because taking blood is less lethal than taking flesh and bone.

Honestly, I wanted an entire quest chain devoted to these guys.

Like a White Glove Society arc.
 
I liked the quest intill you found out that they where vampires it felt kinda stupid. I did really enjoy it to that part though I mean it was kinda okay but it just got abit werid with the vampires I don't even get why/how that works in the fallout universe. And yeah just seems abit shitty.

I do like arfu though Its probably one of my top settlements even though its tiny with not much going on the characters where intresting. I mean theres that crazy girl who offers you cookies and then she admints she not crazy shes just beilieving what makes it easyiest for here to cope with her realilty is pretty cool I've got to admit. Ashame that the quest didn't really add to the blandness of the town and make it seems really untresting in. I liked that place just because it seemed so untresting on a bridge in the middle of no where they really could of plaed up to that and made it a quest that kinda highlighted that.

I mean it sounds kinda strange but a small boring place like that was actually very intresting and I beilieve its one of smallest settlements we have ever seen that works in fallout universe
 
The Dutch Ghost said:
This kind of borders on grave digging.
If you want to talk about a subject that has already been discussed before than that is not a problem, but I much rather would prefer that you open a new topic for it than reviving one that is nearly two years old.
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what would be the point in purposely having several threads about the same topic ? Better fuse them imo.
 
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